


Sum and Inventory

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-18
Updated: 2005-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is loss . . . and then there is this.  (I promise it has a happy ending)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sum and Inventory

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Sirius is gone.

Regulus knows his brother isn't coming back long before he gives up his vigil at the drawing room window. A shadowed falcon (dread responsibility, talons still stained with his brother's blood) circles the room on augured wings. As he turns and sits (with his back to the swinging gate that didn't latch as Sirius ran) it lights upon his shoulder, sinks its claws into flesh and bone. He stares at the fire, feels his skin tear beneath the weight of this new duty, closes his fingers against his empty palm.

 _Come with me_.

 _Leave? But I . . ._

He wonders again what love keeps him here, if it's fear or faith that roots him so. The ancient weave of the carpet beneath his feet holds him fast, its crimson art a shackling beauty.

He bows his head. There is no nobility in this grief.

____spacer____

  
Regulus has been killed.

Remus can't tear his gaze from Sirius' mouth, from the twist of pain that mars those lips. For too long a moment he's rendered powerless, thinks (as reason shifts to disbelief) that there is no place for tears in this room, lest death be conducted (saltwater path for every atom of this loss). He watches Sirius pace his fury into the distance that's grown between them and wishes for the words that came so easily when trust was a game of stag, rat, dog.

He expects the slam of Sirius' fist against the wall, but not the despair that quickly follows. He watches him crumble, jam the heels of his hands against his eyes and pull up his knees as protection against the blows that refuse to stop falling: Gideon; Fabian; James' parents, found by the side of the road.

He fumbles with his book, sets it aside with the pages bent, shifts to sit beside him. "Sirius . . ."

Death is a shocking pain in every joint as he wraps his arms around this man - _not you, don't follow him_ \- trembling with the force of a brother's breaking.

____spacer____

  
Remus is dead.

Sirius folds in upon himself, knees pulled up to his chest in familiar defence. There is no air in the room, only shards of glass that cut him each time he breathes. His heart's fallen away, replaced by some dark, consuming ache that rattles his bones and claws through muscle to reach his skin.

The stone at his back is cold and uneven with corners that dig into every inch of his spine. Everything's damp, and there's salt here – he tastes it each time he moistens his lips – a cruel reminder of the ocean beyond this cell. He's utterly still save for the fingers of his right hand, which clench and rub and swipe against each other, a ceaseless worrying of skin and bone.

He's been waiting for sixty-three hours for Remus to find him.

He sits, abandoned. Remus is dead.

____spacer____

  
Sirius is lost to them.

Remus is too old to pretend that life is just, to rail against fate and god for asking that he bear this too. There is infinite space, he's discovered, between the exhale of one breath and the pull of another to hold the pain of a falling soul. Hours later, his hands still ache with the force of holding Harry against him. He understands what Harry cannot, that life is exactly this relentless and unforgiving - son against parent; siblings parted; love turned to ashes; betrayal of a friend.

In the bedroom that night he tries not to see the dents in their pillows. The ghosts of their kisses dance upon his lips, the morning ritual by which he'd ease Sirius' reluctance to face the day. He wonders if he, too, built this prison of sorts, shaped the desperation that flared into death. He remembers the surprise on Sirius' face; shivers to realize that Sirius was most alive as he fell.

He kicks off his shoes and curls up fully clothed, turned toward a space that vibrates with absence. This time around there is no anger to dull the blade, no tale of betrayal to which he can cling, no fable to recite to his fractured heart.

Closing his eyes, he wishes for sleep, sinks into familiar ache of utter isolation.

____spacer____

  
Remus is older.

Sirius stands, fingers pressed to the rasping bark of a sheltering tree ( _oak_ , he thinks with deliberation). He watches the arc of Remus' hand, scattering breadcrumbs across the path for pigeons who dazzle him with their London grey. With a flash of understanding to pierce the fog around his clumsy thoughts, he realizes this is company, friendship; sees it in the quirk of Remus' smile and the threadbare shift of an elbow inside a sleeve.

"Oh, _Remus_ ," he whispers, and forces himself forward. Each step stirs an echo – his mother's hex against his back; Regulus' face in a lighted window; a flat full of secrets; a funeral he can't attend.

His shuffling gait stirs the pigeons; with a flutter of wings and cry of protest they fly, escape, leave Remus to the singular cold of a park bench in December. He looks up and stills, knuckles pressed white into the flimsy defense of an empty bread bag.

"I couldn't leave." He's not sure if the words are words at all, if the synapses that command thought to become speech still work, can express the tumult of longing in his head. He sinks onto the bench but can't quite touch him, is afraid all this will be nothing but a scene along the route of his falling.

He watches Remus as if this is all there is in the world – stillness, a traitorous blink, the resolute set of his familiar mouth. Sirius is almost ready to risk speech again when – sudden – a shift and Remus is touching him, arms wound around him, his face pressed into the crook of his neck, fleeting kiss against the hollow of his throat.

There is loss, Sirius thinks as his fingers wind into Remus' hair, and there is this – its quiet antonym on a breathless canvass.

____spacer____


End file.
